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Edited By Keith Allan and Kasia M. Jaszczolt

This book "fills the unquestionable need for a comprehensive and up-to-date handbook on the fast-developing field of pragmatics" and "includes contributions from many of the principal figures in a wide variety of fields of pragmatic research as well as some up-and-coming pragmatists."

Book Information

The main argument of the present study is that T/A adverbials in Turkishconstitute the third parameter in aspectual interpretation along with theother two parameters, namely situation type and viewpoint aspect.Concerning the expression of viewpoint aspect in Turkish, (i) the semanticdistinctions denoted by Turkish T/A morphology and (ii) the basicopposition between perfective vs. imperfective and their extendedinterpretations are considered. As for the second parameter, theinteraction of situation type with objects, Turkish perfective vs.imperfective morphology and T/A adverbials is analyzed. A time-relationalanalysis/ categorization of T/A adverbials is proposed. The data suggestthat T/A adverbials constitute one of the core elements of aspectualinterpretation and that a combination of the insights of B. Comrie, C.Smith, W. Klein and M. Krifka is required to account for Turkish dataadequately.

In conclusion, it is argued that aspectual oppositions derive fromuniversal properties of time intervals, relations between intervals andmereological structure and that aspect is a linguistic instantiation ofboundedness. The opposition between perfective and imperfective is arguedto be an instantiation of a total vs. partial overlap relation between thereference interval and the time of the situation, in analogy to one thatobtains between an adverbial interval and the time of the situation. This,in turn, suggests that from a wider perspective aspect is a linguisticreflection of the basic conceptual/perceptual contrast between figure andground in the sense of L. Talmy and H. Demirdache & M. Uribe Etxebarria.